My objections to John Boehner's lengthy explanation of why he opposes network neutrality regulations number approximately one per point made, so I'll just say this: he assumes, like most right-wingers, that regulations equal tyranny. But network neutrality regulations would prevent big telecom corporations from restricting your freedom on the internet, just as clean air, clean water, and carbon emissions regulations make people freer to pursue their dreams by cutting down on the things that make them sick. Blithely assuming that regulations restrict freedom is moronic, and thus unworthy of the name "conservative."
Greg Sargent at the Washington Post notes that Arkansas Republican Senate candidate Tom Cotton has said "(g)roups like Islamic State (a.k.a. ISIS) collaborate with Mexican drug cartels." Mr. Cotton's spokeshack gave Mr. Sargent six links to right-wing websites as proof, obviously figuring that six links would bully us into taking Mr. Cotton's assertion at face value, but here I am, a mere ten minutes later, having read all six links and finding them full of "coulds" and "maybes" and "my opinions" and "ISIS is planning" and "ISIS wants" and "terrorists-but-not-ISIS have come across the border but I can't prove it" -- not to mention all the references to undocumented immigration, which is a separate subject. Verdict: fearmongering.
Tara Culp-Ressler instructs us that we shouldn't worry too much about WalMart deciding to stop offering its part-time workers health insurance. The reason? Thanks to the Affordable Care Act and its subsidies, those workers can almost certainly get health insurance on the federal exchanges more cheaply than they can from WalMart. Which is terrific -- if the good folks working part-time at WalMart know it, which maybe they don't. And under a Medicare-for-All system, we wouldn't even be talking about this.
Twitter has sued our government, saying it has "unconstitutionally restricted by statutes that prohibit and even criminalize" Twitter's wish to publicly disclose our government's surveillance requests. I guess they're not impressed with the Obama Administration's settlement with the tech corporations (including Google and Microsoft) that sued over the same issue last year. I don't blame them; join the words "Obama" and "settlement" together and you're bound to be disappointed. I wish Twitter luck.
U.S. District Court panel strikes down Virginia's 2012 Congressional redistricting maps, and says the state legislature will have to produce new maps by 2016. The panel threw out the maps because Virginia's legislature crammed another 40,000-plus Black voters into an already-majority Black district (the 3rd, represented by Democrat Bobby Scott), essentially reducing their power to influence elections in their new district and, of course, in other districts where they might otherwise reside. The Virginia state legislature has until April to remedy the problem.
Finally, Susan G. Komen for the Cure -- the breast cancer advocacy group last noticed trying to cut ties with Planned Parenthood after being taken over by a Bush Mobber -- has now partnered with a gas drilling services corporation. Their pink drill bits are supposed to make you forget that fracking puts carcinogens in your drinking water, I suppose. A Komen spokeshack defended the partnership, saying that "the evidence to this point does not establish a connection between fracking and breast cancer," but forgetting to add that frackers don't have to disclose the chemicals they use in fracking, which makes such determinations considerably more difficult. Folks, Breast Cancer Action is a much better organization; I've used their action alerts before. Go there if you want to do good works.
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